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Oct. 28th, 2014 02:01 pmI realized that in my last entry I left off a book. I've also finished another since then.
Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam by John A. Nagl (24) Originally his doctoral dissertation, this book by John Nagl (a lieutenant colonel in the US Army and former Rhodes Scholar) compares the organizational learning behaviors of the British Army during the Malayan Emergency and the US Army during the Vietnam War. As a reworked thesis might be expected to be, it's a bit dry for the casual reader and a bit academic for the average military history reader, but nonetheless it does a good job of douign what it sets out to do--documenting how different organizations adapat to situations that they're not accustome to, in this case armies fighting a different sort of war than they have been prepared to fight through training, doctrine, and equipment. The British took a few years but adapated and successfully developed the capability to fight a counterinsurgency campaign. Nagl suggests that this has a lot to do with the sort of conflicts that the British had historically fought, though I think he discounts the historical focus in the regular Army on conventional warfare. The American Army, even with the experience ot the British Army in Malaya to call on, did not adapt to the challenge of dealing with unconventional warfare, continuing to try to fight guerrillas in the jungle using equipment and tactics developed to fight the Russians in Germany and ignoring the political element of the conflict as long as they could.
Roman Blood by Stephen Saylor (25) The first (both in order of publication and chronologically) of Stephen Saylor's novels about the detective Gordianus the Finder, set in late Republican Rome, starts the reader (if not Gordianus's career, which is well underway when the story opens) off with a bang. A brutal and gory murder, political intrigue, incest, and the introduction of an unknown advocate, one Marcus of the Tullii, named Cicero, make this an exciting introduction to this wily and charming investigator. Decent and honest but cynical and world-weary, Gordianus will appeal to most readers. He's clever, but not too clever, and he may take advantage of the wealthy and corrupt, but he's kind and fair to those less fortunate. A good mystery as well as a good read, the plot keeps twisting right up to the end. I've read this before, but I enjoyed it jsut as much the second (or third?) time around.
In progress:
The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World by Greg King and Sue Woolmans
How Can Man Die Better: The Secrets of Isandhlwana Revealed by Mike Snook
Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory by MG Julian Thompson
Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran by Michael Axworthy
Boer Commando by Denneys Reitz
Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam by John A. Nagl (24) Originally his doctoral dissertation, this book by John Nagl (a lieutenant colonel in the US Army and former Rhodes Scholar) compares the organizational learning behaviors of the British Army during the Malayan Emergency and the US Army during the Vietnam War. As a reworked thesis might be expected to be, it's a bit dry for the casual reader and a bit academic for the average military history reader, but nonetheless it does a good job of douign what it sets out to do--documenting how different organizations adapat to situations that they're not accustome to, in this case armies fighting a different sort of war than they have been prepared to fight through training, doctrine, and equipment. The British took a few years but adapated and successfully developed the capability to fight a counterinsurgency campaign. Nagl suggests that this has a lot to do with the sort of conflicts that the British had historically fought, though I think he discounts the historical focus in the regular Army on conventional warfare. The American Army, even with the experience ot the British Army in Malaya to call on, did not adapt to the challenge of dealing with unconventional warfare, continuing to try to fight guerrillas in the jungle using equipment and tactics developed to fight the Russians in Germany and ignoring the political element of the conflict as long as they could.
Roman Blood by Stephen Saylor (25) The first (both in order of publication and chronologically) of Stephen Saylor's novels about the detective Gordianus the Finder, set in late Republican Rome, starts the reader (if not Gordianus's career, which is well underway when the story opens) off with a bang. A brutal and gory murder, political intrigue, incest, and the introduction of an unknown advocate, one Marcus of the Tullii, named Cicero, make this an exciting introduction to this wily and charming investigator. Decent and honest but cynical and world-weary, Gordianus will appeal to most readers. He's clever, but not too clever, and he may take advantage of the wealthy and corrupt, but he's kind and fair to those less fortunate. A good mystery as well as a good read, the plot keeps twisting right up to the end. I've read this before, but I enjoyed it jsut as much the second (or third?) time around.
In progress:
The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World by Greg King and Sue Woolmans
How Can Man Die Better: The Secrets of Isandhlwana Revealed by Mike Snook
Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory by MG Julian Thompson
Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran by Michael Axworthy
Boer Commando by Denneys Reitz
